Can anyone recommend a laptop for Computer graphics?

[The Stinger]

I am starting a computer graphic class in a few weeks, and was told by the professor that I needed a laptop. So now I come to you and ask what is the best laptop for computer graphics? I heard Apple is good for that sort of thing, but not too sure if that was a wrong assumption.

If anyone can help out a newbie to the graphic world, I would appreciate it.

[redwudz]

The prof should have gave you some guidelines on what would be needed. While Macs have great laptops, if you have been working with MS OSs, it may be some problem learning a different OS in a short time.

There are are quite a few laptops with sufficient specs to do even advanced computer graphics. Most important is exactly what programs will you be running? That may determine what you need for the laptop specs.

The question you asked is very open-ended. You may get responses for laptops that could cost around $6000, which I'm sure you are not looking for.

A little more information on requirements for the laptop is necessary for a informed recommendation.

[dfgh11]

There is this SLi Laptop. Although it's more like a portable desktop computer. Battery life of about 1 hour 30 minutes.

http://www.rockdirect.com/notebooks/xtremesl_cons.htm

[Skith]

Unless you are doing something complex like CAD/3D animation (on a very advanced level) I doubt you would need an SLi Laptop, SLi is mostly a boost for games.

If you are working with things like Photoshop, Premier, Sony Vegas, Adobe Illustrator, or other professional creative software, you have to first consider your Platform: Windows or Macintosh.

If your school is providing the software, you should find out which platform it runs on, or if you have to buy it, you need to consider which platform you want to use, as you will be bound to it (you have to buy either windows version or macintosh version).

I have heard the new Mac laptops have poor battery life, I don't know how true that is. There can be some issues working cross platform, if you are not careful (if you have windows and the school has mac, or visa versa), so that is something to consider.

You should not need a top of the line system (unless you want to spend the money) but I would recommend a minimum of 512MB RAM, more if possible, and if working with video a large hard drive, or secondary externernal HD (firewire is usually best).

A large Screen is also a boost, battery life may not be a concern if you plan to have access to an outlet when you work.

I hopt these tips help.

[dinkob]

There is also something else to consider;

I don't think it matters what type of laptop it is as long as it has a good video card and ram etc;

I preffer Dell Latitude models but I won't tell you to go ahead and get one, since we all have different opinions on this matter.

What you should look for is contrast ratio on their screen (which is always different) and prefferably WARM settings for editing (this is espically noticeable with skin tones of people). For example Viewsonic VG150 has a very nice color tone to it when set to warm.

Dell's in that case would not be good as every dell that I have seen lately does not really meet this. So far IBM has always made good screens with the high contrast ratio so maybe look into them.

[Skith]

the video card/system of the laptop should not matter much, but watch out for video solutions which utilize system memory for video ram, that might be your only concern if you are going to be working with large files.

For 2D work (photoshop, video editing, encoding, etc.) video solutions should not matter that much (unless out plan to output onto an external monitor at high resolution, then it might be worth looking to a system with a little more power in the video system).

[edDV]

Go back and talk to the professor about the software and hardware needed for his class. Save money for software because it won't be cheap even for educational versions. Don't get Mac unless that is what is specified. Have the professor guide you into hardware that will get you to a degree. Pro oriented classes will probably be using Maya which has hardware requirements well documented. But we are just guessing what software will be used.

[rallynavvie]

Actually with Boot Camp out now you can't go wrong with getting a Core Duo MacBook. You can then run both OSX and XP on the same laptop having only to reboot to switch between the different OS. From most of the reports I've been reading the MacBook performs just as well as any Windows-specific laptop. And though the MacBooks have a higher price tag than most other laptops they do come with some pretty decent hardware behind them. I'm kinda mad that Apple release their dual-boot tool a week after getting my Vaio since I would have loved running Windows on an Apple lapper